NSW Education minister talks new primary school curriculum 06:26

Education Minister Pru Karr is with me to discuss. Minister, thanks for your time. Thanks, Chris. So you're calling this effectively explicit teaching, as in, hey, kid, you need to know this if you want to pass your test. Is that right? Yeah, this is about knowledge. This new set of syllabuses in this curriculum is about what are the core bits of knowledge that our kids need to learn.

What concepts do they need to grasp in order to go on to the next concept? And we are mandating in all of our schools, our public schools in New South Wales in particular,

using this curriculum to explicitly teach. So as you said, the critical thinking, the inquiry-based thinking, that can only really start if there's a knowledge base to start with. So this is about what the core bits of content we need our kids to grasp are. Is this an admission that we've been getting it wrong? Look, I think it's an admission that this curriculum is actually based on the evidence of what works.

And, you know, to their credit, the previous government started this overhaul of the curriculum and the review showed that our old curriculum or the current one we're phasing out is just too crowded and

left too much for interpretation was actually harder for teachers to use as a tool. This will actually arm our teachers with the tool of the explicit knowledge. So I had a quick flick through it. So I note that climate, energy and electricity will be taught to primary school kids in what way?

I mean, in an age-appropriate way, that is just the fact and the knowledge of what needs to... how electricity is made, how we get energy to power our homes. Those will be the examples that will be age-appropriate at all times. This really is a knowledge-based curriculum that is really built on facts and actually based on the science of how little brains learn. Sure.

the cognitive way that they grasp information. Just on the climate situation, is there going to be a discussion of climate change in primary school? Well, there'll be no politics in the classroom and to be honest, this new curriculum leaves little room for that. Is that possible though? If you tell, I don't know, an eight-year-old, hey listen, climate change is the greatest threat to humanity that we're facing at the moment.

Is that not politicisation in some people's minds? Well, really, the discussion in a classroom based on the knowledge base of the curriculum will be more about what is climate, basic concepts that lead to the next concept. It's not at all about anything other than the basic knowledge to move on to the next concept. Because one big issue that I've got at the moment, I've been speaking to, and you know, you've got...

young children yourself and as you know Henry's getting a little bit older you think okay well we've got to start thinking about primary school and I speak to friends of mine who've got their kids in primary school and they say to say to me that climate anxiety is a real thing where there are children being taught that humans are going to be extinct in a couple of decades

I can guarantee you, Chris and parents listening, that the most important thing in this curriculum is hands down the literacy of our young people, starting with the development of the phonics of how to read and write. What about transgenderism, sexuality, that sort of thing? There's nothing like that in the PBHP curriculum from K to 6.

It's all age-appropriate stuff about how your body works, the skeletal system, how to move your body for your well-being and your physical health, and age-appropriate PDHPA content. So nothing about sexuality at all?

from K to 6? There's nothing like that. It's obviously, of course, when you get to Year 5 and Year 6, there is age-appropriate lessons about puberty and what that means, you know, when your body changes as a young boy or a young girl, but nothing that is not age-appropriate. What about a young non-binary person?

No, I mean, it's very basic knowledge about the way the body works. What about compulsory civics and citizenship content? I like this. So teaching kids about voting in our democratic system, but I'm also interested in Australian history. And I am bringing up the controversial stuff because inevitably somebody will ask about it.

So Australian history, you've got Aboriginal cultures as well as the arrival of the First Fleet. You say this is a fact-based discussion, so there will be no sort of value placed on either end of it, Aboriginal history or the First Fleet. It's just going to be a balanced view? Is that the hope from the department? I mean, the curriculum makes it very clear that it's content-based, it's knowledge-based, it is the facts,

of history. And in fact, that's more explicit in this curriculum, arming teachers with that tool to be more explicit. Just on the Australian history stuff, because ultimately you can't control what the teachers say. And you've got to, there was a teacher at Daly Chill Public, I think a couple of years back, that said stolen generation was a beat up and the real reason children were taken from their families was bad, lazy parenting. And then in the same breath, you've got

a teacher at Kiama Public who were forcing kids to say sorry in songs about stealing Aboriginal children. How do you ensure that the curriculum is taught how it is supposed to be taught?

Well, I suppose what can I do, Chris, if you're asking as Education Minister is we can roll out a curriculum that is very clear, that makes it very without interpretation, very clear that these are the explicit bits of knowledge that are required to be imparted.

And can I just say the lion's share of our incredible teachers in our classrooms, they want that. They want that tool to be able to use. All right, Minister, I really appreciate you jumping on. I think it's a wonderful step in the right direction and I'm sure there'll be stuff at the margins. There's always stuff at the margins. But ultimately, if we can just get back to basics, because when it comes to literacy, when it comes to numeracy, our kids in New South Wales have a very, very long way to go. So this is a step in the right direction, I reckon. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Chris. That's Minister Prukar.